Russian Nuclear Forces Complete Large-scale Drill

President Vladimir Putin, the supreme commander-in-chief of Russian armed forces, on Friday participated in the exercises and directly controlled the testing of the automated communications control system, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov told local media on Saturday.

The command drill of the nuke forces, the largest in its recent history, also included combat training launches of strategic and cruise missiles, Peskov added.

All components of the nuclear forces, including the long-range air forces, the sea and the ground forces, participated in the drill.

As part of the drill, Russian Strategic and Space Forces on Friday tested an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) Topol, the Defense Ministry confirmed.

Topol RS-12M (SS-25 “Sickle” by NATO classification) was launched from Plesetsk space center in Northern Russia, with its warhead hitting the target on Kamchatka Peninsula in the Far East, according to the ministry’s spokesman Vadim Koval.

Large-scale exercises of the Strategic Nuclear Forces under the command of President Vladimir Putin have completed in Russia, the president’s press-secretary Dmitri Peskov reports.

He says that these were the first nuclear force exercises on such a large scale in Russia’s modern history.

On Friday, a Topol intercontinental ballistic missile was successfully launched from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in the Arkhangelsk Region.

Also on Friday, The Svyatoy Georgiy Pobedonosets nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine of the Pacific Fleet launched a ballistic missile from the Sea of Okhotsk to the Chizha testing ground in the north of European Russia and Tupolev-95 and Tupolev-160 strategic bombers launched four missiles to the Pemboi testing site in the Urals Region.

Pemboi has also become the site where the Russian troops for the first time successfully hit a cruise missile with the Pantsir-S surface-to-air missile and anti-aircraft artillery weapon systems of the latest generation (the NATO name SA-22 Greyhound).